Egyptian soprano Fatma Said will sing the songs of famed Egyptian crooner Abdel Wahab at a concert with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London this week.
The concert at the Theatre Royal on Drury Lane on Sunday is the capital's first major tribute to the singer and composer in 40 years. His music was last played in the city’s Royal Albert Hall.
Abdel Wahab was a pioneer of popular Arabic music in the early 20th century, known for his patriotic songs and iconic songs written divas such as Umm Kulthum and Fairouz. His repertoire of songs and his “musical revolution” were instrumental to shaping an era of music in the Arab world that is now regarded as a golden age.
For the first time, his work has been adapted to a classical music orchestra, which will be led by the Egyptian conductor Nader Abbasi. The London Arab Orchestra will also play at the concert.
It is the first time that the opera singer Said will sing a whole concert in Arabic dedicated to Abdel Wahab. She is better known for her renditions of Western operatic composers such as Maurice Ravel and Gustav Mahler.
“I’m presenting myself in a different light,” she told The National. “I do not have the traditional voice (for Arabic music). I’m not an Umm Kulthum.”
Instead, she has learnt to sing Abdel Wahab in her own way – for audiences more familiar with Western classical music. “I put Abdel Wahab in my voice and my vocabulary, in a way that still feels familiar to the audience,” she said. Said has sung Abdel Wahab and other Egyptian crooners of the period to audiences in Europe and more discerning ones in Bahrain and Egypt – but never as part of a full Arabic concert.
“I’m so happy it’s Abdel Wahab, he’s my absolute favourite composer. I listened to him as a child, my father introduced me to his music,” she said. “I’ve known so many of his songs by heart since I was a child,” she said. “When I started singing at 13 years old I thought to myself, 'will I ever have the chance to perform (Abdel Wahab) on stage?'”
Her favourite song is Ana Laka 'Al 'Atoul – both for its music and words. “The quietness yet very strong feeling that Abdel Wahab put into this song really moves me,” she said.
Abdel Wahab's legacy
It is part of an attempt by Abdel Wahab’s family – who run his estate – to popularise the singer among Western audiences. And while his legacy is still alive in the Arab world, it is dwindling with time as a younger Arabic diaspora becomes less familiar with his works.
From this came the decision to adapt Abdel Wahab's songs to a philharmonic orchestra for the first time. “Old Arabic music can be intimidating. We want to present it in a way that is more approachable,” said Omar Khalil, Abdel Wahab's grandson, who is organising the concert.
Some of the songs were shortened as modern audiences tend to shy away from the longer performances of the time. The original 1964 recording of Umm Kulthum's "Inta Omri", composed by Abdel Wahab, lasted 59 minutes. Live performances could take just as long, as crooners repeated verses in response to demand from the crowds.
Khalil is himself a music producer based in Barcelona, and has been working closely with Said, Abbassi and the orchestras on the adaptations for the concert. “His music is timeless, it can be adapted in so many different ways,” he said.
The choice of Said and Abbassi was obvious, Khalil explained, due to their training as classical musicians who were also brought up surrounded by Arabic music and culture.
Khalil said he wouldn't shy away from contemporising Abdel Wahab's song to appeal to younger audiences. “We're not going to be stubborn, the legacy needs to live on,” he said.
Verses from Abdel Wahab's patriotic songs about the Egyptian revolution in 1952, which led to the overthrow of the monarchy and paved the way for Gamal Abdel Nasser's rule, were also removed as new generations were less likely to relate to the spirit of that time.
“They (the verses) talk about Egypt in a way that you can't relate to any more,” said Said, who nonetheless acknowledges the historical value of the verses.
Umm Kulthum was deeply tied to Nasser's regime and gave emotional resonance to his pan-Arab politics. While she and Abdel Wahab initially viewed each other as rivals, Nasser intervened to have the pair collaborate on "Inta Omri" in 1964 to emphasise Egyptian unity.
London was picked as the inaugural venue for what is set to be a series of concerts. “London is special in many ways, it is the most important cultural hub is the world,” Khalil said. It is also home to a “prominent Arab community”, he added. “It’s important for them to connect to their culture.”
It is hoped Paris – the city where Abdel Wahab spent most of his time when he wasn't in Cairo – will be the next destination.
Khalil said he remembers Abdel Wahab as a grandfather rather than a musician – and a “pretty strict” one at that. In his old age he would quickly became bothered by the tumult of his many grandchildren. Khalil was five when Abdel Wahab died aged 89.
He became more aware of his maternal grandfather's musical legacy aged 10, through his own father – Abdel Wahab’s son-in-law – who got Khalil listening to the music. “I haven't stopped since,” he said. Now Khalil runs a Olum, a music events company in Barcelona, while also heading his grandfather’s estate.
The event in London was produced by Mona Khashoggi, an artist and producer whose work focuses on reviving the Golden Era, and who in March 2020 produced and wrote a West End musical about Umm Kulthum.
The concert will aim to show the full breadth of Abdel Wahab’s work – from his early patriotic songs, to the classics that he composed for others. “People know of Abdel Wahab without really knowing him,” Khalil said.
For example, it is less well-known today that "Inta Omri" – one of Umm Kulthum's biggest hits – and "Ahwak" by Abdel Halim Hafez, were Abdel Wahab’s own compositions.
Golden Age
Composers such as Abdel Wahab and his contemporaries collaborated prolifically and with sophistication, creating a defining sound for their time. Their age was a cosmopolitan one, and they borrowed musical styles from Europe and Latin America. But that culture has since been lost.
Event producer Mona Khashoggi said these artists remained “central” to Arabic culture and identity decades on.
“These singers, composers, poets, are central, not just to Arab musicological heritage, but to the question of modern Arab identity and culture itself. They continue to inspire musically, socially and politically,” she told The National. “It was an era of classical Arabic fluency and the audience was educated and cultured,” she added.
The close collaboration between the artists was also vital – with Abdel Wahab composing "Inta Omri" specifically for Umm Kulthum's voice. She is looking forward to a “magical and unforgettable night”. “Fatma Said has made these songs her own,” she said.
Said believed that a shortage of funding for the arts and public education in Egypt and the region had contributed to the decline.
“It was an era that flourished in so many different aspects. It was not only arts but authors, poets,” Said said. “There was a system that supported them, I don't think that's the case in Egypt any more.”
An orchestral revolution
Part of Abdel Wahab’s “musical revolution” Khalil said, was his introduction of an orchestra to play his songs.
Arabic music ensembles known as the takht typically consist of five to six instruments. Abdel Wahab expanded this to include Western instruments such as the violin – sometimes adopting Western styles such as waltzes in his compositions.
“He brought forward the idea (of an orchestra), introduced new instruments and multiplied those instruments,” he said.
But those ensembles and musical arrangements were still distinct from those of philharmonic orchestras. They did not include all of the string and bass instruments that appear in Western symphonies.
The challenge, therefore, was to “reassign” music that may have been composed for an Arabic instrument to a Western one. “We rearranged the music in a classical way to make it simpler for the musicians,” he said. Though Arabic instruments will still be part of the concert, the emphasis will be on the classical instruments.
